When the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) called for young men to join the military last June, Zakariya Issa* turned to the nearest recruiting center. He was one of thousands of young people who trained for 10 weeks in Wad Madani, a town south of the capital Khartoum.
In September he was deployed with 500 men to fight the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group stronger than the army and backed by the United Arab Emirates. Many of his friends and colleagues were killed or wounded within a few weeks.
“I lost five of my friends,” Issa, 20, told Al Jazeera from Saudi Arabia, where he now lives. “They were more than just friends. They were my brothers.”
The Sudanese army and allied groups rely on young men with little or no military training to fight as foot soldiers against the RSF. Recruitment has increased across the Nile State over the past week since the RSF captured Wad Madani, Sudan's second largest city.
The Nile State is a traditionally privileged region that has produced many of the political and military elites in Sudan's modern history. But now army officers and figures from Sudan's political Islamic movement, which ruled for 30 years under former autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, are calling on young men from this region to thwart the RSF.
New recruits told Al Jazeera that they were motivated to take up arms because of the risk that the RSF could attack their cities, loot their belongings and subject women to sexual violence.
Most view the RSF – made up mostly of nomadic tribal fighters from Sudan's neglected Darfur province – as invaders and occupiers. While the group has forced thousands of people from their homes, army supporters are also using ethnic undertones to recruit young men.
“I picked up a gun to defend myself, my ethnic group and my homeland,” said Yaser, 21, from Shendi, a city in Nile State where thousands of people have reportedly taken up arms in recent days have grabbed.
“The RSF are not only at war with the army. They are at war with the civilian population,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Cannon fodder”: Civilians arm themselves
After Wad Madani fell to the RSF, civilians throughout eastern and northern Sudan suffered devastating damage. The city was a refuge for internally displaced people who fled Khartoum and surrounding towns at the start of the war. Now they're on the road again.
“Most people think that the army cannot protect them now,” said Suleiman al-Sadig*, a lawyer from Atbara, a city in Nile state.
RSF's recent advances have added to the panic. Photos and videos surfacing on social media appear to show children and young men arming themselves in River Nile State. According to local residents and journalists, some of these recruits have gone to Wad Madani to fight against the RSF, while others remain behind in case of an attack.
The video from Al Matama shows SAF commanders arming children/youths. At least they look like children to me. This is both crazy and negligent on so many levels. #KeepEyesOnSudan pic.twitter.com/JelIxVwdT6
– s🌻 (@justshayxo) December 21, 2023
“The calls to arm themselves do not come from the army. They mostly come from civilians themselves,” al-Sadig told Al Jazeera.
Sulieman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think tank, believes arming young men is irresponsible.
“For me, these young recruits are really cannon fodder for ideological reasons,” he told Al Jazeera. “Sudan [political] The Islamic movement is pushing for this type of mobilization in areas outside the control of the RSF.”
One of the young recruits can be seen in a photo posted on social media, which Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify caught attached by the RSF and tied to the windshield of a car.
A former soldier who is in close contact with Army officers added that new recruits are often the first people to die in combat.
“They have no combat or military background and only carry weapons. They die quickly,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ethnic orientation
Over the last two decades, River Nile State has attracted many young men from Arab and non-Arab tribes in search of work and stability. Many were uprooted by the state-backed Arab tribal militias – later renamed the RSF – which crushed a largely non-Arab uprising in Darfur in 2003.
These young men are now accused of spying on behalf of the RSF due to their ethnicity and tribal affiliation. According to local observers, many of them were detained, tortured and even killed by military intelligence and armed civilians in northeastern cities.
On December 19, Zeinab Noon* spoke to her male cousins, all between 16 and 20 years old. They told her that they had captured RSF spies in Shendi.
“[They said] They are being tortured, so there is a sense of paranoia,” Noon, who lives outside Sudan, told Al Jazeera. “I don't think they know [for sure if they’re really spies].”
The Darfur Network for Human Rights (DNHR), a local monitoring group, said in a statement that these attacks were “linked to incitement to ethnic violence” in Nile cities.
Jawhara Kanu, a Sudanese expert at the United States Institute for Peace, said the ethnically targeted attacks risk driving vulnerable people from Darfur and Kordofan, a province in central Sudan, into the arms of the RSF.
“These people will find themselves in a situation where they will be tortured [by parties aligned] with SAF unless they choose to join the RSF for protection reasons.”
End the war
Despite growing calls to bear arms, some activists are pushing for an end to the war and for young men not to fight. According to al-Sadig from Atbara, their efforts so far appear to be in vain.
He said a protest took place in his city on December 23. Young men would have demanded that the governor arm them so that they could defend their city and join the army in battles across the country.
RSF's abuses in Wad Madani are also fueling calls for mobilization. More than 300,000 people are fleeing the city, mostly on foot. RSF fighters are also reportedly looting cars, hospitals, houses and markets, exacerbating the hunger crisis.
An RSF fighter was seen in a video circulating on social media, which Al Jazeera could not independently verify explained that it was “his right” to rape women in the cities he conquered.
Al-Sadig said news of abuses were widespread and frightened civilians in the Nile region.
“Every day people in their community tell young men that the RSF will come and get you and that they will take your houses, kill your children and rape your women,” he told Al Jazeera.
Nonviolent activists like al-Sadig hope the war will end soon. On December 22, local media reported that top army chief Abdel Fatah al-Burhan had agreed to sit down with RSF leader Mohamad Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
While a deal could spare Sudan further bloodshed, al-Sadig is waiting to see where the RSF attacks next. He told Al Jazeera that he would take up arms if necessary.
“I don’t want to take up arms. But if the RSF targets my home, my children or my wife, then of course I will defend them,” he said.
*Some names have been changed for security reasons.